The Legacy of Heorot
Review
by: Kyle
DuVall 
Written
by: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Stephen
Barnes
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Hollywood
makes so many bad adaptions of science fiction novels that
it's always a bit frustrating when you come across a book
that seems to scream for the big screen treatment, yet is
completely ignored by Hollywood.
In 1987
longtime collaborators Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle took
a break from writing epic, "hard" sci-fi like Lucifer's Hammer
and The Mote In God's Eye, hooked up with author Stephen Barnes,
and created just such a novel with The Legacy of Heorot, a
laser-sharp action thriller of man vs. monster on Earth's
first interstellar colony.
Largely
unavailable since the mid 80's, Legacy has begun to show up
on shelves again in an inexpensive, paperback edition, and
is well worth checking out if you're looking for a fast-paced
but wholly intelligent adventure story.
Set in
the far future, The Legacy of Heorot follows a mixed expedition
of ambitious geniuses as they establish the first extra-solar
space colony on the newly discovered, Earth-type world of
Avalon. The expedition's meticulously selected members are
the basic cross-section of wide-eyed optimists and science-minded
utopians that inevitably inhabit this kind of sci-fi exploration
novel. There's physicists, biologists, farmers and geneticists,
even one military man, Grizzled war vet Colonel Cadmann Weyland.
Leaving
a unified earth devoid of challenges these colonists quickly
create a communal society based on logic, scientific advancement
and altruism on an island they name Camelot. Among these PhDed
polyanna's stands Weyland, the community's lone warrior, whose
duty is to oversee the colony's security. A military man among
scientists, Weyland is painfully aware of the innate separation
that exists between himself and the rest of the idealistic,
pacifistic colonists.
Legacy's
story joins the colony several months after its establishment.
The initial hardships have been conquered, the herds of livestock
are thriving and the first crops are being hauled in. Aside
from a few people lost in cold-sleep during transit, the colony
has suffered no casualties and faces no outside threats, and,
as life becomes more idyllic, Colonel Weyland gradually sees
the tight security precautions he has set in place slowly
go ignored and forgotten. Still urging caution, yet completely
unable to come up with a valid threat to the colony, Weyland
becomes more and more distanced from his fellow colonists
and more and more aware of his own obsolescence.
You can
probably guess what happens next.
First,
livestock begin to disappear. Weyland, perhaps too suddenly,
begins to think a new, dangerous presence is stalking the
colonists' new paradise. Unfortunately, the other colonists
are convinced the whole thing is a ploy for power by the alienated
Colonel. When a fellow colonist is killed in a botched attempt
by Weyland's to lure out his unseen menace, the community
quickly becomes convinced Weyland is a madman.
Of course,
just when all the guards are dropped and all the colonists
are convinced Weyland is delusional, the terror strikes. For
the Avalon colonists, terror comes in the form of a super-speed
killer that is thereafter dubbed The Grendel. Armored like
a crocodile, spiked like a prehistoric anklyosaur and fortified
by a rocket-fuel hormone that gives it unimaginable speed,
The Grendel proceeds to shred, mutilate and devour every shred
of the community's complacency by going on an unchecked rampage
right through the heart of the colony.
When the
rubble is cleared and the bodies are counted, the beleaguered
Weyland doesn't stick around to say: "I told you so…" Infuriated
by his treatment at the hands of his fellow colonists (which
almost got him gobbled up by the Grendel) Weyland packs it
all in and sets off for the high country to start his own
colony of one.
As for
The Grendel, the other colonists are convinced it has died
in a fiery leap from a cliff into a river near the encampment.
A fiery leap from a cliff into a body of water? Readers of
comic books and fans of horror film will recognize this as
a classic ambiguous death ploy. If you're thinking we haven't
seen the last of The Grendel, then you're right.
For Legacy's
colonists, the most harrowing perils are yet to come, but
now the conflict is two fold. Avalon's scared colonists must
not only fend off the murderous Grendel, but they also have
to convince the one man who can save them, a man they have
completely ostracized, to come back and lead the fight.
The Legacy
Of Heorot is a straight-forward sci-fi, action page-ripper.
What sets this particular space-adventure apart is purely
in its execution. Pournelle, Niven, and Barnes know exactly
what they've got with Legacy and they know where to concentrate
their efforts.
The Legacy
Of Heorot isn't a story that maps the intricacies of the souls
of its characters. In fact, the characters are pretty clichéd.
The men are the sort usually found in the fiction of men's
magazines. They're either rugged, stubble jawed men's men,
or the breed of lilly livered bureaucrat that envies them
and connives their downfall. And The women are that type of
universally beautiful, buxom and promiscuous scientific genius
that once filled the pages sci-fi's more lurid pulps.
But this
is all O.K. The authors know that this isn't a story that
will benefit from volumes of soul-baring character development.
You don't have to ache for these characters, you just have
to care about them enough that you don't want to see them
masticated by a supersonic death machine. With this in mind,
Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes can focus on the things that
really do make Legacy move: The plotting, the action, and
all the little technical details that make Legacy's Grendels
the totally plausible and supremely cool adversary they are.
It's in
this literary "homework" that Legacy's genius really shows
through. The habits of the murderous Grendels, their biology,
their role in Avalon's ecology, are all constructed in a way
that pays attention to logic and details, yet also serves
the story. As a result, the various turns the story takes
and all the tricks the authors pull out of their hat never
come off as contrived plot devices, but as logical and credible
actions and reactions within the framework of the story.
Then again,
just because the authors have a created a supremely logical
story doesn't mean that Legacy is predictable. The ecological
surprises Niven and company have cooked still hit you off
balance. Because of this, Legacy's characters seldom suffer
from "idiot-genius" syndrome. When the colonists get caught
with their pants down, the reader usually does too. There
aren't many moments that leave you wondering why you can figure
out the Grendel's next move, but a vlillage full of biologists
and rocket scientists can't.
What all
this adds up to is an extremely tight adventure story that's
still high on the roller-coaster factor. All the head-scratching
technique and biological research doesn't get in the way of
dozens of incredibly cinematic sequences that play out in
the reader's mind like million-dollar Hollywood set-pieces
from an extremely Kick-ass monster movie. There's a Grendel
chase through a whitewater canyon, a flaming-Grendel rampage,
and a climactic, all-out war that rips and roars through the
pages the way an Imax film pops out of a movie screen.
Niven,
Pournelle, and Barnes have built this novel like a Sherman
tank: You can't dent it, you can't stop it, and it's ready
to roll right over you. Pick up the paperback and treat yourself
to a blockbuster movie didtributed exclusively to the most
state-of-the-art theater on the planet: your brain. Just be
careful it doesn't blow out the sound system and melt the
screen, you may want to watch it again.
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